Episode 87: Be it a Town or a Beverage
First of all, go see The Golden Compass, right now. It has everything I love about the Enlightenment combined with everything I love about armored polar bears, aerial witch squadrons, steampunk technology, and Sam Elliott. Not seeing this movie would be tantamount to murdering a part of your own soul.
As to the strip, the Great Age of Fortifications had passed away by Napoleon's time. The grand fortresses of the Thirty Years War and the wars of Louis XIV on which so much intense effort and study had been lavished were brushed aside by the wars of mobility of Frederick and Napoleon. There were attempts at larger scale fortifications later, of course: the Maginot Line, the Siegfried Line, the beaches of Normandy, and all of them failed more or less miserably.
- Count Dolby von Luckner
Relevant Archival Episodes to Peruse:
As an early Christmas present, The Count got me a 1/6th Reichs Thaler coin that was minted during the reign of Frederick the Great. Specifically, the coin was minted in 1776. I don't think I've ever owned something that might very well be older than the USA before.
Now I need to find some fancy way to mount it so that the worn visage of Frederick can exhort me to work on the comic in style.
--Geoff
